How Tall Is It?

I was a wee bit shy of 5' 11" at my peak. Many years of wear and tear have occurred and there has been some settling of contents. I don't think I am quite that tall anymore. That will give you some idea though of how it feels to disappear beneath the tallflower meadow.



Several sections of the meadow are well over my head. A foot over my head in some places. I have to look up to see perennial flowers.



Just think how Crawford feels down there. It is a lot harder to catch the bugs when they are out of leaping distance.



I don't call it the tallflower meadow as an embellishment.

Down In The Tallflower Meadow

It's an ongoing love hate relationship. There is no denying the beauty of nature's slightly manipulated exuberant chaos. My maintenance gardener mind rebels though and wants more control and order. The recently planted variegated Miscanthus does add an element of order that helps. In the tallflower meadow though, any such added element will have to be able to compete and stand out if it is to make any difference. In its first year, the miscanthus is just getting started.



There is a certain resignation that I must live with what nature has handed me. There is neither the time nor the budget to play with the illusion that I will ever take full control. Only a winning lottery ticket could accomplish that.



Instead I must learn to blend my gardening efforts into the nature of the beast. Garden? Tallflower meadow? Which could it be?



What was planted and what just showed up?



For end of season bloomers it means some height is required and a bit of thuggishness may be a very good thing when considering whether to add them to the tallflower meadow.



In the tallflower meadow there is a lot of competition and jostling for position.



Even closer to the ground no space is left empty. Lobelia siphilitica tucks itself in at the feet of the tall things.



But look what nature does when the gardener plays with the ingredients.



My maintenance gardener mind never shuts up though. I spend my days in well tended gardens and come home to exuberant chaos. At least there can be brief spells of order around here.



In theory a structural backbone of plants will allow the rambling wildflowers to go about their business and the maintenance gardener will be able to cope with the loss of control.



I am making progress on the structural backbone.



And the passersby will wonder, is it a garden or a wild meadow.



Only the gardener will know what was added, what was subtracted and what was let be.



Down in the tallflower meadow.

West Asheville Garden Stroll 2011

I have posted three gardens from the third annual West Asheville Garden stroll so far. Only twelve more to go. I don't know if I will be able to get there though. I still have garden photo chores to finish at the WAGS website and captions for the picture set.

So instead of keeping anyone waiting, you can take yourself on a self guided tour of the garden stroll. Just click on Dame Dorothy Whipple below. Enjoy.

WAGS 2011

Bloom Day Weedflowers

September Bloom Day ushers in a completely different ambiance to the low spot on a North Carolina mountain top. The mood has shifted. The White Snakeroot, Ageratina altissima is in full bloom now. It actually prefers the shadier parts beneath the trees of the open forest. Next door in the ridge top garden the Ageratina is close to carpet thick.



The ample height of the wild things at this time of year obscures the notion of garden more so than at any other season. Still, the yellow horticultural mum that followed me home this spring is in full bloom and shines through next to some of its wild Asteraceae relatives.



The Asteraceae is a big family. Protected from the wild things with a thick layer of wood chip mulch, the horticultural zinnias continue their months long cheery display. I don't think they could cope out there with their wild relatives.



As long as I have a thick layer of mulch, I have a little more say so in who goes where and what goes next to whom.



Without mulch, you never know what will park itself next to something I planted out there in the garden to be. And around here chances are very good it will be weedflower that we might like.



Or not. I am totally over the New England Aster. They grow five feet tall at least and then proceed to fall to the ground when it is time to bloom. What is the point of getting that big if they are going to do that? Sun, shade, bunched up, all alone, it doesn't matter. They fall over. That is their habit, period. They go on the edit out list.



This White Wood Aster, Eurybia divaricata, has much better compact and upstanding manners.



Seedling Joe Pye are even getting in on the act for September Bloom Day and hinting strongly that they would make a good pairing next to the pink Muhly Grass. I take the hint. The location for both may need to be changed though.



Yea, though I swat my way through the valley of the tallflower meadow,
I will fear no weeding, for a fine garden lies within me.

Thou annointest my head with seeds and burs; the tallflower meadow runneth over.
Surely wildflowers and beauty shall follow me all the days of my life

And I will garden in the land of the tallflower meadow forever.



September Bloom Day ended in a cold drizzling fog. Another sign that the mood has shifted. Around the world many gardens can show many moods. Be sure to visit Bloom Day headquarters in the fantabulous Indianapolis for another hundred takes on weedflowers.

My First Copperhead

As much time as I spend in the bushes you would think it would have happened sooner than this. I saw my first Copperhead snake yesterday. It only took four years. The name is most apt. There was no mistaking what I was looking at right behind my truck and in stepping on distance.

Did I scream and run away? No. I went and got my camera and zoomed in on the sucker. It watched me. I went around the other side of it and the head followed me. And back around again. The head followed me.



I spend a lot of time in the bushes and am far more likely to see fields of purple Ironweed, Vernonia novaboracensis, than poisonous slithering reptiles.



Those fields of purple pull me in and pull me over. I wade through the tall lush for a better look and a better shot, not thinking much at all about the varmints that constantly surround me.



The varmints I do think about and loath the most are the field mice. They don't stay in the field where they belong. One died somewhere in my truck recently. You can imagine how that smells. I spent this evening turning over all the sofas and chairs at the house next door to find the mouse that won't get caught. It pushes the glue traps aside to get to the food left as a lure. I found a mouse had been storing cat food and sunflower seeds in the innards underneath Bulbarella's main lounging chair. Damn varmints!

You can see why I wouldn't be quick to want to kill a poisonous Copperhead snake. It was a small thing anyway, only about 14 to 16 inches long. The head followed me.



It was time to get back to work though and this snake was to close for comfort. I took a rake and tried to shoo it off. It coiled up into a striking position. Shoo snake. I have my picture. Now get. I don't have time for this. It recoiled to strike. I took the rake again, scooped it up with the ends of the soft tines and flung the snake off into the bushes. It got the message and got moving after that. I'll be just fine if it is another four years before I see another Copperhead.

Two Gardens

One the very same street less than half a block apart are two very different gardens. The first has the gardener's nightmare, dry shade under large trees, made only worse by many of the trees being Black Walnut. The gardener gardened anyway.

Earlier in the season the one sunny spot was filled with blooming perennials. Hosta filled the terraced front garden. Then there was hail and then there was drought. The gardener gardened on.



The gardener grows lovely plants in pots on a very shady front porch.



In a spacious back yard in a good deal of shade the new garden expands. In the pseudo sunny center section a vegetable growing area was set aside and winding down for the season.



Then it was pointed out to me. The front garden was filled with faire houses. Hiding in the hosta and daylilies, there were at least four of them. A child had found them there.

Filled with fairies and children, this garden can't go wrong, no matter the shade and Black Walnuts. The gardeners will garden on with their children.



Just down the street is another very small front garden blessed with full sun and a gardener with an adventurous spirit. You won't find many of your average ordinary plants in this garden. Cast off metal was repurposed into sculpture and every square inch of space except for the paths was packed with plants.



A small weeping cherry tree did cast shade over a portion of this small garden. Metal scraps are used for edging and river rocks made up the paths.



Head high lush in a space that might measure 25' x 30'.



Herbs and perennials shared space in the sun.



It seems there is a rather sizable number of gardeners in Asheville who haunt the metal salvage yards on a regular basis. They sell stuff by the pound not artistic value.



Some part/object was cut out of this metal sheet in a manufacturing process. The rest is discarded. Or did an artist create this?



Right at the edge of the very narrow street, a miniature garden carried the lush of an adventurous gardener right to the curb. Small metal objects are scaled to the miniature garden.



These two gardens were half a block apart on one street in West Asheville and there were a number of other gardens worth inquiring about in between.

The Pink Froth

Of Muhly Grass, Muhlenbergia capillaris.



I do have a garden of sorts too.

Just One Garden

On a shaded tree lined street, behind a full yet seemingly demure suburban garden facade lies Anahata.



An inviting path pulls you in.



With much to stop and see on your journey along the way.



"In Anahata, one is making decisions, 'following your heart', based upon one's higher self, and not from the unfulfilled emotions and desires of lower nature.

Anahata is also associated with love and compassion, charity to others, and forms of psychic healing."

This garden captured my heart the first time I saw it.



From the moment I stepped inside I knew it was a place of peace and comfort, a refuge from the rushing world outside. This garden is the living embodiment of a garden oasis and what gardening has the power to do for the individual and the larger world out side its walls.







In Anahata, comfort and calm, created with simple botanical beauty.



Some of the unfamiliar perennials also caught my eye.



This looks to be Aster tataricus, Tatarian Aster just beginning to bloom. What, the genus name hasn't been changed to Symphyotrichum?

Seeing it standing tall in person and reading about it online makes me think it would be a fabulous replacement for the royally floppy, six foot tall Symphyotrichum novae-anliae, New England Aster that we have up here and is such a pain when it falls over. I just don't think a simple replacement would work to well.

I must return to Anahata and get me some Tatarian Aster. The clash of the aster titans could begin.